Farmers Market Bag: Eat Local in Style!

See how to make a cute reusable farmers market bag using heat transfer vinyl!

Carry all of your favorite fresh produce home in style while you shop small and eat local!

Farmers Market Bag: Eat Local in Style!

Our local farmers market is held every Saturday morning from April through Thanksgiving and it is fabulous!

We love checking it out and grabbing some local grub.

Everything is just SO much fresher and tastier than the produce from the grocery store.

Usually before we go, I rummage through the pantry and grab one or two reusable bags from Target or ones that we’ve snagged for free over the years to haul our finds back home.

But let’s be honest…those aren’t very cute. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Since I’m all about cuteness, and because I’m completely obsessed with my Silhouette Cameo, I decided to use up some extra supplies that have just been collecting dust in my craft stash and made my own DIY reusable farmers market bag.

And not to brag or anything, but it is suuuuper cute.

Now I’m able to browse the booths with a 100% Christine-original tote bag, and if somebody inquires about it and asks where I got it, I can utter one of my favorite lines: “Thanks, I made it.” :)

Farmers Market Bag Supplies

Here’s what I used to make this DIY reusable farmers market bag:

• Canvas tote bag
• Silhouette Cameo
• Weeding tools
• Black heat transfer vinyl (HTV)
• Iron & ironing board
• Pillowcase

My ‘Eat Local’ Farmers Market Bag Design

I first created my farmers market design in Silhouette Studio since I’d be cutting it out in HTV using my Silhouette Cameo.

I wanted something that said ‘Eat Local,’ but I didn’t want to just use regular text (how boring).

So I created my own graphic font!

Each word is made up of letters that are comprised of foods or other images associated with eating (like a spatula) or a farmers market (like a tractor).

The design is a little crazy and different (like me), but not so much that you can’t make out what it says…at least I hope not. :)

I don’t know how many times I showed it to my husband and asked him “Can you *really* tell that it says ‘EAT LOCAL’ or are you just saying that?? Do you mean it?? Seriously, you can tell??”

Needless to say, he got very annoyed with me during this stage of designing, but hey, that’s what crafty wives are for. :)

Silhouette Studio HTV Cut Settings

Once I was pleased with my final design, I added some weeding lines to make the upcoming removal of excess HTV much easier.

Then, since I would be cutting this out in HTV as opposed to regular vinyl or another medium (like stencil film), I needed to mirror my image.

That way it will appear correct once applied since HTV is actually cut on the backside instead of the front.

I know…crafting gets complicated!

After several test cuts, the cut settings I ended up using for this were the default Heat Transfer Material (Smooth) settings

However, I bumped the speed down a couple notches since this design was very intricate with lots of tiny little cuts.

• Speed: 6
• Thickness: 4
• Blade: 2

Loading the HTV into Silhouette Cameo

I then headed to my vinyl storage organizer and pulled out a sheet of black HTV.

Like I mentioned, this gets cut on the BACK side, so I needed to load it into my Silhouette Cameo with the shiny side down.

The shiny side is actually the clear backing, which is what is used to transfer the HTV to the garment once cut…hooray for not needing transfer paper!

Oh, and can you tell I was a little paranoid about my sheet shifting while being cut??

Who needs a cutting mat or roll feeder when you have canned goods! ;)

Weeding Excess HTV

Once my HTV was loaded, I hit ‘Cut’ and let the magic happen!

This was my first time using HTV, so I hovered over my Silhouette throughout this step like I was hovering over my newborn…not even exaggerating.

I eyed this thing like a hawk, and I was a little nervous at first.

I couldn’t see ANYTHING being cut.

The blade was moving and the Silhouette was singing its familiar song (*skwerreeeeee, eeeeekkkkuhhhh, guurrrhhhh!*), but where were my cut lines??

I had to whip out my iPhone’s flashlight to see that cuts were in fact being made.

Several minutes later, my design was finished being cut, so I unloaded my sheet and got to work weeding…and this HTV stuff sure ain’t easy on the eyes!!

Man oh man, is it hard to see!

My craft tweezers and hook tool were weeding lifesavers.

The weeding lines made things a little easier at least!

One little bugger gave me lots of problems though…the artichoke!

I don’t like to eat them in real life and I don’t like weeding them in vinyl either.

This sucker did not cut well for some reason and I was spending way too much time trying to salvage all those tiny leaves, so I ended up just cutting out a new piece…and wouldn’t you know this new one weeded perfectly in less than five seconds.  #figures

{Oh, sorry about the lighting change! This step and all the rest took place after dinner and I lost my natural sunlight. Boo.}

Prepping My Reusable Canvas Bag

I first pre-heated my iron on the Cotton setting and then ran it over my canvas bag to smooth everything out and to heat up the fabric a bit.

Applying the ‘Eat Local’ HTV Design

Next up, I eye-balled the HTV‘s placement on the bag.

If the eyes say it’s straight then it doesn’t matter what the ruler says!

That’s my motto, at least.

A nice thing about HTV compared to regular vinyl is you don’t need to mess with any transfer paper.

The clear backing as opposed to the vinyl is sticky, so it makes it really easy to see your placement and readjust if needed.

I then grabbed a spare pillowcase and laid it across the HTV and bag and got to applying the HTV.

Instead of continually sweeping the iron back and forth like you do when ironing clothes, I held/pushed the iron down in place for 10-15 seconds then moved it over a bit and repeated this process across the whole design.

I used it like a mini handheld heat press.

After about a minute or so, I tested out the application by slooooowly peeling off the backing…and the HTV was sticking to the bag like glue!

There were a couple spots that started to peel away with the backing, so I just laid the backing and pillowcase back down and gave everything another pass with my iron.

That did the trick perfectly.

My Final DIY Farmers Market Bag: Eat Local in Style!

And here is my finished DIY farmers market bag in all its ‘Eat Local’ glory!

This ‘Eat Local’ design turned out SO cute and looks great on the bag.

The HTV worked perfectly too, and I was really impressed by how intricate I was able to make some of the components.

I can’t wait to show it off at our local farmers market nearly every weekend!

Other Fun DIY Bag Projects

Here are some other fun DIY bag projects I’ve shared!

If You Enjoyed This…

If you enjoyed this, make sure you check out my other Silhouette creations (and lots of others), and also join me over on Pinterest!

Thanks so much for stopping by!